{"id":846147,"date":"2026-09-13T08:06:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T08:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/846147\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T08:06:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T08:06:21","slug":"andrew-scott-gets-candid-about-gay-actors-playing-straight-roles-at-tiff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/846147\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Scott Gets Candid About Gay Actors Playing Straight Roles at TIFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCould Andrew Scott<\/a> make history?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat is the big question concerning the Irish actor\u2019s towering performance in \u201cElsinore,\u201d<\/a> which debuted in Telluride before playing the Toronto International Film Festival<\/a>. Directed by Simon Stone<\/a>, the film features Scott as Ian Charleson, a Scottish actor whose career has slowed down since featuring in \u201cChariots of Fire.\u201d The year is 1989, and when Daniel Day-Lewis walks offstage<\/a> during a production of \u201cHamlet\u201d at London\u2019s National Theater, Charleson sees it as an opportunity to show the world what he\u2019s made of as an actor \u2014 even as his body is being ravaged by AIDS, and against the advice of his doctor (Olivia Colman), who warns him that the stress could further worsen his health.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Variety\u2019s <\/a>Clayton Davis wrote<\/a>, \u201cThe casting is too perfect to be accidental. Scott is himself a celebrated London Hamlet, here playing a man whose Hamlet was his last act of defiance. \u2018Elsinore<\/a>\u2019 is, at its heart, a love letter to actors \u2014 to the craft as vocation, to the courage of standing in the light when the body is failing. And a milestone waits inside the role. No openly gay man has ever won the Oscar for best actor, and Scott could very well become the first.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tScott was widely seen as \u201csnubbed\u201d for his embodiment of Richard Rodgers in \u201cBlue Moon\u201d and the haunted Adam in \u201cAll of Us Strangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Saturday, Sept. 12, Scott took the stage at the Royal Alexandra Theatre to roaring applause as part of TIFF\u2019s \u201cIn Conversation\u201d series to discuss his much-heralded turn in \u201cElsinore\u201d and his storied career. The talk was moderated by Keith Bennie, TIFF\u2019s vice president of public programming.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe talk began with Bennie asking Scott, 49, who was sporting a striking purple jumper, about the internet\u2019s obsession with him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t have the internet. I never see it,\u201d he joked, before adding, \u201cIt\u2019s actually wild: You never know what feral things people [will say].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cElsinore\u201d is the first film Scott has ever produced, so he said it \u201ctook a huge amount of encouragement and support and vision from so many people\u201d to bring it to fruition. It was also a very personal project for Scott, who is openly gay and has been acting in theater since the \u201890s, including his aforementioned turn as Hamlet in 2017.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou go through stages with it, and the film is so incredibly personal for me, which is the reason why I chose to produce this one,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s set in the theater and about the representation of gay actors in the \u201890s, and it\u2019s about family. So many things that I really relate to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tScott made his acting debut as a teenager in \u201cKorea,\u201d an Irish film that premiered at TIFF in 1995. And it was a formative experience for him, since he was given a crash course in how to conduct himself on a film set by watching his co-star, screen veteran Donal Donnelly, who led with authority but treated people with dignity and respect.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDepressing. No, it was extraordinary. I was 17, and it was the first film I\u2019d ever made,\u201d offered Scott. \u201cI learned how to be on a set because [Donnelly] was incredibly kind and fun with everybody\u2026 He wasn\u2019t in any way cruel or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Scott was a child, he had a speech impediment, which, in a roundabout way, is how he \u201cfell in love with acting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I was a kid, I had a speech impediment \u2014 I had a very strong sort of lisp\u2014 so I had to go to elocution lessons at seven or eight,\u201d he shared. \u201cIt had a drama section to it where you could improvise in front of the other kids.\u201d Performing poetry and monologues in front of a crowd, however small, \u201camplified something that was dormant\u201d in him.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt one point during the talk, Bennie shared a scene of Scott\u2019s priest acting alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the second season of \u201cFleabag<\/a>,\u201d which became an internet sensation and earned his character the nickname \u201cThe Hot Priest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf you had got a script that said, \u2018The Hot Priest,\u2019 you\u2019d be like, \u2018This is dodgy,\u2019\u201d joked Scott. \u201cIt was just called \u2018The Priest\u2019 and then the internet took over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tScott, however, was immensely proud of \u201cThe Hot Priest\u201d craze in the sense that it helped ease some of his own anxieties about whether the audience would accept a gay actor in a role as a woman\u2019s love interest.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI guess there was a fear that I wouldn\u2019t be able to get cast in those roles. That\u2019s what everybody said,\u201d he confessed. \u201cBut I knew, because when I did plays, that the people that were waiting at the stage door, they knew my sexuality and they did not care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued: \u201cI feel very proud that that was quite a big moment because people were like, \u2018The actor is gay. Whoa!\u2019 And it is like this idea that the audience is stupid. We go to see \u2018Batman,\u2019 and it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh my god! He is not a bat?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd if you don\u2019t like Scott in those types of roles, that\u2019s on you.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s just prejudice,\u201d said Scott. \u201cAnd we won\u2019t cater to those people, or I\u2019m certainly not going to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAbout an hour in, the talk swung back to \u201cElsinore,\u201d a film \u2014 and performance \u2014 that people will be talking about throughout awards season.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s about how we use our time, and he was enormously fun, attractive, beautiful, amazingly gifted actor,\u201d Scott said of playing Charleson. \u201cAnd the film is about the support that he got and the courage that he displayed. The reason I was so attracted to it, I think, is because it doesn\u2019t end well for any of us, and quality of time is what he chose\u2026 I know what an Olympian, absolutely exhausting task that is [to play Hamlet]. I did it 150 times\u2026 The idea that he did it when he was so unwell, it always just gets me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tScott, who got choked up while discussing the film, also lamented how difficult it was for Charleson to act, or even exist, at a time when gay men, particularly those with HIV\/AIDS, were being viciously discriminated against.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere weren\u2019t any gay actors \u2014 for no reason,\u201d he remarked. \u201cThat was taken away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Could Andrew Scott make history? That is the big question concerning the Irish actor\u2019s towering performance in \u201cElsinore,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1064,236,335779,88,167335,358016,328009],"class_list":["post-846147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-andrew-scott","tag-celebrities","tag-elsinore","tag-entertainment","tag-fleabag","tag-lgbt-representation","tag-tiff-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}